


Metametriosis

by fleurofthecourt



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Chronic Illness, Chronic Pain, Crack Treated Seriously, Crowley Takes Care of Aziraphale, Dreams, Endometriosis, Hot Flashes, I Can't Believe I Wrote This, I Don't Even Know, Ineffable Idiots, Insomnia, M/M, Sick Aziraphale (Good Omens), Sickfic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-29
Updated: 2019-09-26
Packaged: 2020-09-28 23:27:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20434238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fleurofthecourt/pseuds/fleurofthecourt
Summary: Aziraphale and Crowley are trying to work out why, all of the sudden, Aziraphale is hot and uncomfortable all of the time. The reason, in the story, is that Aziraphale has been cursed by the author with the author's health problems (specifically, endometriosis and the side effects of the medication used to treat it)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this for these 2 reasons: 
> 
> 1\. There is imbalance between Sick Crowley and Sick Aziraphale fic (and not nearly enough of either; come on folks, fix this for me) and I wanted to attempt to even it with my bizarre offering.  
2\. I'm always hot, and I can't sleep. So neither can Aziraphale. 
> 
> There's is a better than decent chance that when this is revealed to Aziraphale, in a dream, I think, since we aren't there yet, and I haven't written any of that part yet, that I will be making fun of how much I enjoy sickfic.
> 
> I have no idea why any of you are here after reading the summary but welcome!

The muggy August air clung to Aziraphale as he trudged along the familiar path around the park, Crowley at his side. 

He was going on about one of the more demonic of his recent inventions. Catcha? Caps? Something to do with robots, numbers, and, bizarrely, if Aziraphale understood correctly, traffic lights. 

Aziraphale couldn’t quite keep it straight, first because it had to do with technology, and well, why did computers keep needing to be updated? Whatever had been wrong with the humans’ first go at them? 

Well, perhaps not the very first go. He could, at least, understand the need for one that comfortably fit on an office desk.

Crowley had gotten him one for his shop’s inventory after Adam had changed it all to children's first editions and had even helped him catalog it. (He’d needed all the help he could get with that; fortunately, that seemed to be Crowley’s intention). 

And second, well, he wasn’t quite sure what the matter was. Not really. He thought he wanted to do something back at the shop, but he couldn’t remember what is was precisely or even if there actually was something at all. 

He would be just at the cusp of remembering whatever it was and then the thought seemed to flit away in the uncomfortably warm breeze.

His waistcoat felt unnaturally hot against his skin, particularly at the nape of his neck, and his hand felt sticky and clammy against Crowley’s cool soft grip. 

“I’m at the book part, Angel. You’ll like this.” 

“Mmm,” Aziraphale hummed for Crowley to continue as he lifted his free hand to his collar. He tugged it away from his over warm skin, which helped. Minimally. 

He didn’t understand. He shouldn’t get hot. Not like this. 

“Aziraphale,” Crowley leaned in rather close, his nose practically touching Aziraphale’s own, the yellow of his eyes gleaming beneath his glasses, “you’re not listening to me.”

“I am,” Aziraphale protested far too earnestly for someone who had, mostly, not been, “you said something about, er, goggles...”

“Google,” Crowley corrected before giving him a once over. “I thought you’d like the book transcribing bit, but, er...are you alright? You look well... uncomfortable.”

Crowley frowned at him, looking about as puzzled as Aziraphale felt. 

“I am uncomfortable. Terribly so. I’m quite hot, and I have this awful feeling that I'm forgetting about something very important. Something at the bookshop, perhaps,” Aziraphale said, helplessly pinching at his temple, “or, er, do we have a date later?”

“Angel, er, we’re on a date,” Crowley smiled gently, looking a little concerned, before lifting their joined hands and swinging them for effect. “Fed the ducks, circled the bandstand, and now, I think, we’re going for a drive back to your shop. Come on.” 

Crowley practically dragged him back to the Bentley before advising him not to put in the tape he’d picked up because it was not _that kind_ of orchestra. Then he cranked up the air conditioning. 

Aziraphale held his hand over the blissfully cool air flowing from the vent before pressing it to the back of his neck. Again, it helped. Minimally. 

He clasped his hand together in his lap and firmly shut his eyes as Electric Light Orchestra played “Killer Queen,” and Crowley drove recklessly across London. 

XXX 

When they were back at the bookshop, Aziraphale sat on the sofa in the back room, running a wet cloth over the back of his neck watching as Crowley upturned boxes of new inventory. 

Some time after everything had changed, Crowley had gotten into this annoying habit of actually selling things. Because, well, children’s books meant children. And while Crowley would never admit this, he was quite fond of them. And, as it turned out, many of them were quite taken with both Crowley and books.* 

__

__

So, once Crowley had made sure Aziraphale wasn’t particularly attached to certain ones, they practically walked themselves out the door. Some of them, Aziraphale was quite sure, without any money changing hands. 

That part didn’t bother him so much. It was the replacing them bit that did. 

He loved searching for books; It had been a pastime of his for centuries. But he liked to track down particular copies of particular books by going through bibliophile back channels that often wound their way to the long forgotten personal collections of Aunt So and So’s attic. 

Crowley’s particular indulgence in salesmanship (or, more accurately, librarianship), on the other hand, required mass market bulk. 

Aziraphale hated it. 

“Box of graphic novels. Another one,” Crowley said tipping the contents of the last box he’d miracled open onto a creaking table. 

“We’ve got a box cutter,” Aziraphale grumbled, grimacing at the Graphix logo emblazoned on the box. He didn’t like graphic novels; he felt they had far too many pictures and not nearly enough words. 

And he knew they owned that box cutter specifically so miracling boxes open, of all things, wouldn’t draw unnecessary attention from up above or down below. 

“Always chips my nail polish,” Crowley said as he flipped open something absurdly titled Dog Man. 

“Repaint them then,” Aziraphale snapped, glaring at the anthropomorphic dog, then immediately regretted his vehemence. He knew the situation didn’t call for it. He dropped the cloth onto the sofa’s cushion with a heavy sigh. “I’m sorry, Crowley. I don’t know what the matter is with me. Truly, I don’t.” 

Crowley dropped the book to the table and joined him on the sofa. “You’re alright, Angel. You don’t feel good. No one’s at their best like that.”

“No, I suppose not,” Aziraphale conceded. 

“Are you still hot? Like you were?” Crowley asked. 

“Not as hot,” Aziraphale said, frowning at the suit jacket, waistcoat and bow tie that he’d set over the sofa’s arm. He didn’t particularly like taking them off, but he wasn't very keen on putting them back on at the moment either.** 

As he was considering this, Crowley’s hand found its way to his forehead. “Still doesn’t feel like you’ve got a fever or anything. Seems too tame and vague for Pestilence, er, Pollution. Not really their style.” 

“Don’t they go by Global Warming now?” 

“No, no, think all of the horsemen teamed up for that one. Not that people are trying to stop them. You know, we go to all that trouble to stop the apocalypse just for the humans to bring it on all on their own. Almost funny, isn’t it?” 

Aziraphale frowned deeply at him. He didn’t think it was even a little funny, but thankfully he could tell Crowley didn’t really either. 

“No, no, of course not.” Crowley said sullenly, and they were both quite sobered for a moment before they returned to the issue at hand. 

“But, no, dear, you’re right; I don’t think this has anything to do with any of them,” Aziraphale said. Flushing unpleasantly hot was very uncomfortable, but it seemed unlikely to discorporate him. Which said something about the horsemen’s lack of involvement. 

“Still, maybe you ought to, I don’t know, lie down and try to sleep it off or something?” 

“I suppose it’s worth trying.” 


	2. Chapter 2

A few hours later, Aziraphale was lying on their bed staring blearily at the ceiling. He felt like sleep may do him some good but, no matter how he lay, he couldn’t seem to get there. 

The tartan quilt had been folded back entirely onto Crowley’s side of the bed, and his socks had been kicked to the floor in frustration. There did not seem to be such a thing as a comfortable position.

If his thin beige sheet was pulled over him, it was much too hot. If he kicked the sheet off, his extremities prickled with goose pimples. 

In frustration, he’d settled on dangling one foot off the side of the bed and throwing his opposite arm across Crowley’s midsection. 

Crowley, who had been very annoyingly sound asleep, roused as Aziraphale’s elbow, not entirely accidentally, jabbed into him. 

If he had to suffer through this, he wanted company. 

“Mmm ngk...‘Ziraphale?” Crowley yawned drowsily as he sat up and surveyed the tangled state of their bedding, “Can’t sleep?” 

“I’m afraid not,” Aziraphale sighed. “Is trying to sleep always so...so torturous?”

He knew perfectly well that it wasn’t. He’d read for hours and hours in this very spot while Crowley dozed perfectly peacefully. As he just had been. 

It was just this cursed ailment. 

Crowley’s soft knowing gaze told him the same. 

He sighed, “Sorry I woke you, dear.”

“No, you aren’t,” Crowley said lightly.

“I am,” Aziraphale replied indignantly. 

“Not even a little bit. So come on, Angel, you woke me up for something. What’s on your mind?”

“I ...I don’t like this, Crowley. I want to sleep, but I can’t. And I don’t know how...” 

He felt frantic and lost, and he hated it. 

Crowley’s fingers laced through his and squeezed, comforting and grounding. “If it’s alright, I’m going to try something?” 

“You already tried a healing. I see no point in you trying that again.” 

“Well, you never know. It could work this time. But, thought I’d give miracling you to sleep a whirl. If you want me to try.” 

“Oh.” 

Aziraphale thought for a few moments then nodded. “Yes, go ahead. I suppose there’s no harm in that.”

Crowley’s cool fingers brushed gently across his temple, an electric pulse of magic thrumming at his fingertips. As his fingers lifted away, a pleasant warm, drowsy feeling overtook him as Crowley kissed his forehead, “Sweet dreams, Angel.” 

XXX 

Unfortunately, while Aziraphale did sleep extremely well that night, he did not succeed in sleeping the ailment away. 

Not that night, nor the following night, or even the night after that. 

Instead, whatever it was, and Aziraphale couldn’t hazard a guess, it got worse. 

The unbearably hot and irrationally irritable symptoms stayed and were shortly joined by an unpleasant cycle of digestive issues and a strange painful sensation on his right side that ebbed and flowed but never entirely went away. 

The digestive issues were dreadful.   
First because they were physically irritating, bordering on painful, and second, because, quite frankly, they were too embarrassing to even want to explain. 

Crowley knew, obviously knew, that Aziraphale was locking himself in the toilet at the cottage, the bookshop, and anywhere else they happened to go for uncomfortable periods of time for some reason but, well, digestion shouldn’t even happen to him. The fact that it was happening completely wrong just made it, well, mortifying. Crowley didn’t need the specifics. 

He did, however, try his best to explain the constant pain in his right side. But he found, infuriatingly, that the pain kept changing, and no description of it ever felt entirely adequate. 

Sometimes it was a sharp and sudden stabbing that passed quickly but left a warm, tender ache behind. 

Sometimes it was an aggravating pinching feeling digging aggressively at the side of his pelvic bone. 

Sometimes it was an itching feeling that made it seem like infinitesimal insects were crawling around his insides. 

Other times, it was a dull, burning sensation that didn’t necessarily feel awful but definitely felt wrong. 

No matter how it felt, it was a sensation that, in his opinion, was not meant to be experienced by the human body and even less so by an angelic one. 

In short, he was frustrated and miserable. 

XXX

Crowley, meanwhile, was frustrated and angry.

“You already know it won’t work,” Aziraphale said. “We’ve both already tried so many times.” 

“Then it’ll be a nice surprise if it does then, won’t it?” Crowley said as he rested his hand on Aziraphale’s side.

He drew on his power and focused it on removing or, at least, numbing Aziraphale’s pain. 

He’d done healings hundreds of times. They were, now that he felt he could admit it, if only to himself, among his favorite things to do as part of The Arrangement. 

Watching the relief wash over families and friends and lovers and then ripple into a warm gratitude that fomented a strong general feeling of good was very satisfying, dare he say heartwarming.* Very bad for a demon supposedly loyal to hell at the time but, well. His loyalties had always been elsewhere. 

So despite Aziraphale’s suspicions to the contrary, especially during the plague and the flu epidemic of 1918, Crowley had personally had nothing to do with those or any other demonic disease. He had, in fact, avoided them. 

Some forms of evil, he felt, were too insidious to inspire. 

He hoped as the building ache in his temple told him that yet again, the healing was not working, that this was not the kind of evil at work here. 

That heartwarming feeling had a heart rendering opposite. Aziraphale had already inspired it in him once when his bookshop burned down. He hoped to never experienced it again. He never wanted to lose his best friend. 

“My dear, you’re just giving yourself a headache,” Aziraphale sighed. 

“Sharing the pain, then,” Crowley said flippantly. 

“Well, if you were actually taking some of my pain, I’d allow that that’s what you’re doing. But you’re not, so you’re just needlessly hurting yourself, Crowley.” 

“Angel, I want to help.” 

“You do help. You know you do.” 

Aziraphale was right. He did what he could. It just didn’t solve anything, and he hated it. 

He wanted something more tangibly like healing. He wanted to see that relief washing over Aziraphale’s eyes. 

Instead he miracled up a bottle of over the counter painkillers. He took one himself for his building headache before dropping the bottle in Aziraphale’s open hand. 

Human remedies would have to do until they worked out what this was and how to deal with it. 

Crowley had a few ideas on where to start.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *He did not dare to say this out loud. 
> 
> ————
> 
> If Crowley could miracle me to sleep...that would be fantastic.

**Author's Note:**

> *Aziraphale had previously assumed Warlock’s love of books had been entirely his doing. 
> 
> ** Despite Crowley’s insistence that he was practically indecent without them.


End file.
